I'm really excited about releasing this chapter for a few reasons; I worked very hard on it, but mostly it just feels good to get content out. When I first decided to write this story I was aiming for a chapter every two weeks, but so far it's looked like every three weeks is all I've managed to stick to. The most exciting part though is knowing that you story followers get something new to read, as the plot is starting to go to exciting places now while I write it at work.
I would like to go on record as saying this story is rated M for a reason, and this chapter starts to mention some dark topics relating to child abuse and trauma that could be triggering to some people. Not that viciously slamming someone's head against a table repeatedly was anything that didn't already warrant an M rating, but I just feel it's right to say so now.
Thank you for reading!
The Maw, Day 17
He ate alone.
He slept alone.
He would die alone too, and with the way things were going, a small part of Roman just wanted to get it over with.
Even over the clamor of the crowd, the sudden screech of the alarm was clearly audible, and he winced as he rose from the table. The bandages Neopolitan had applied had done wonders for the healing process, keeping infection at bay, but walking was still uncomfortable at best, and agonizing at worst. He limped along with the lines of fellow inmates, depositing his half-empty tray in a bin as he made his way out of the cafeteria.
The other prisoners made sure to stay to his flanks. They weren't afraid of him, Roman knew that wounded as he was he was a walking target for any vengeful White Fang, Hong Zhao that wanted some practice versus a Black Circle assassin, or any guards in a bad mood. No, they weren't afraid of him; what they were afraid of was killing the one prisoner Friedrick Russet wanted to keep alive, and suffering, as long as possible.
In the twelve days since Top Dog had fallen, Roman had witnessed several fights break out in the middle of the cafeteria, the cockiest, biggest prisoners constantly trying to fill the void left by Top Dog as… well, top dog; in the metaphorical sense.
But no one had died, and none of the fights had drawn a crowd nearly as large. Right now, everyone was too cautious to lay a hand on him, and once he could walk properly again, he would be just as capable of cold-blooded, unarmed murder that he had been the day he set foot on The Maw's filthy floors. If anyone had the courage, or just didn't care about Russet's retribution enough, to kill him before he could take his vengeance on that hairless son of a bitch, Roman would try his damndest to kill them too, and if he lost?
It wasn't like it could get much worse.
He returned to his cell to find the Old Man had once again stayed behind to rot away in peace; what he ate, and how he was even still alive were complete mysteries to Roman. Not like he cared, as the two hadn't spoken since Neopolitan had been taken, and that could have happened a lifetime ago.
He carefully laid down on his bedroll, trying as he always did to envision an eventual escape plan. He wouldn't be able to rely on any other prisoners, as there was a chance they would rat him out to Russet, or use him until it no longer suited them, or any number of possibilities, none of them beneficial. No, he would have to do this alone; trust was what had put him here in the first place.
The broken pipe in the wall would make for an effective improvised weapon; it was even curved like a cane to allow for the disarms and counters he had studied... if he had the strength to pry it out. Roman estimated that there were only a few hundred prisoners in The Maw, and even less personnel; the prisoners outnumbered the guards several to one, but the firepower available to the guards was formidable: shock batons were standard issue, and most carried older gunblade models. He had glimpsed several miniguns, and a rocket launcher on one occasion.
It would be possible to overwhelm the guards with sheer numbers, but every prisoner in The Maw would have to work together, and currently they seemed unable to let go of the same allegiances that had mattered while they had been free, whether that loyalty had been to a criminal organization, radical terrorist group, or themselves alone; uniting them was out of the question.
He growled, turning over; the more he thought about it, the more impossible escape seemed to be. Even if he managed to fight his way through hundreds of armed guards, alone, armed with nothing but a pipe, The Maw was in Atlas, far north, and as far as he knew there was only one way off: the same way he had arrived, by barge. Slow, cold, and a sitting duck for Grimm attacks. The creatures hadn't attacked while he had been en route, so if his bad luck was a pattern, they would the minute he escaped.
The cell door creaked open, and there was the sound of manacles clinking as a pair of feet stumbled forward through the doors before hitting the floor with a light thud. Roman's eyes snapped open, himself turning over as the cell door was closed and locked.
"Neo?"
She had returned, though at first Roman wasn't sure if the girl he now saw was indeed the same one he had called Neopolitan. She now wore a relatively clean white dress, and her hair had been washed and brushed, dirtied only by the floor she had just hit face-first. The way she scurried frantically to the corner of the room, however, was all too familiar.
Roman shuffled, rising slowly as Neo huddled in her corner.
"… Hey, kid."
He hadn't expected a verbal response, but if Neo reacted at all, it had been completely unnoticeable. She didn't even twitch.
Roman slowly walked across the cell, and even as he did so his mind buzzed with questions, all practically stumbling over one another as they raced to the forefront of his conscience.
Where could she have been for nearly two weeks?
How did she get a shower and a new dress? He didn't even have a shirt.
Above all, why did he care so much? Before he had ended up in this pit he wouldn't have paid some silent girl any attention at all, ice-cream eyes or not, but after so many days alone with nothing but pain for company, seeing Neo again was almost like the feeling of returning home after days away.
She was the only person in The Maw that he didn't hate. It was a start.
He sat against the wall, a few feet separating him from the still-huddled Neo. Slight, nearly imperceptible shivers racked her tiny frame, though Roman found the cell hotter than what he considered comfortable.
"Nice threads, Neo," he quipped, trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere, "You didn't manage to bring back any shampoo with you, did you?"
The humor fell on ears that just weren't listening. She kept shaking.
He used to shake like that.
"Dammit," Roman breathed, one hand cradling his forehead, which was beginning to pound the more he internalized the bleak reality he found himself in.
Fat faunus fuck. Drinking Mistralian wine.
"How did I end up here, Neo?"
The silence that followed was expected, but Roman already had an answer for the question that never came.
"I grew up in Vale, you ever been there? It sure edges out this place. The first thing I can remember is my father, striking my mom to the floor."
Roman reached for the place where he used to keep his cigars, back when he had a jacket, sighing as he found only ribs; old habits never died.
"He left eventually, good riddance, but not before showing his family just how much he loved them. Everything that happened, in the cafeteria, when I first got here? Far from the first time I've ever had to pretend that pain wasn't pain, and that's not counting the ink."
He let out a dry chuckle; amused by his own aimless rambling or just the extent of his own misfortune, he wasn't sure.
"After he left, my uncle stepped in," he continued, "He used to… I think he used to dress me up as a girl, I guess; makeup, bows, and dresses, always said I had such pretty red hair or something like that. I don't remember, I was six, and honestly I don't need to: He was a freak, and mom never found out; when I tried to tell her, she hit me, just like dad did. Just wanted me to shut up."
At this point Roman no longer cared who was listening. The old man, the silent Neopolitan, or both; it didn't make a difference if they all just planned on staying quiet.
"So I ran away," he continued with another humorless huff, "All kids try, maybe you did too, once? Maybe you didn't, the thing is: I never went back home. I met a guy, who brought me to another guy covered in Grimm tattoos, who brought me to a guy with walrus tusks; sound crazy, yet? Don't worry, it gets better: I ran Dust, drugs, weapons, illicit contracts… basically if the cops wanted it, I was carrying it across town and giving it to someone else."
Neo shifted, hair falling away to reveal a single, pink eye as Roman continued, seemingly oblivious.
"Turns out I was working for The Black Circle, one of the oldest assassin cults in Remnant, though these days they're more into anything illegal that pays lien, and Giovane, the one with the tusks, worked for them, brokering contracts and maintaining a cash flow for their operations. So: if Vale is a big chessboard, The Black Circle is the king, he's a bishop, and I'm a pawn, for years. Eventually though, I guess The Black Circle thought I would make a good assassin. I got my first tattoo when I was 14, and that cane our friend Russet beat me with? Yeah, that cane is mine, by the way. I was given that too; The Black Circle isn't too keen on sniperswords, gunhammers and deathpurses like the Huntsmen are these days; they tend to stand out. Who would you suspect more: a guy with a cane, or a guy wearing transforming, high-caliber machine boots? I've seen a pair of those before, not even kidding."
Roman glanced at Neo as she leaned a pale cheek against one knee, clearly listening from behind her locks. Focused, but not offering an opinion.
"I committed my first murder to get that tattoo… would you believe me if I told you the one I killed was my freak uncle?"
Neo blinked.
"Didn't think so."
Roman glanced at the Nevermore on his forearm, just above the halfway healed number he had been so generously given on the day of his arrival, its bony beak spilling onto his hand, bloody and open mid-screech.
"I got my orders from good old Giovane, and I remember the first thing he asked me: 'Boy, who do you hate most?'"
Roman looked away, as if the walls had windows. He was giving himself a moment to sift through the memories, separating the ones he liked from the ones he wished would go away. Neo's eye flicked to the cell door as she watched him, otherwise still.
"He hadn't lived with my mom for years," Roman shook his head, "but Giovane had an address for me in minutes. I took a cab across town, climbed in through the window, and beat him to death while he was watching TV. Honestly I'm not sure he really deserved it, but I was 14, and I hated him; I hated him for pretending to be my father, pretending to love my mom, putting me in a dress… I hated him because I lived on the streets for so long, but now I was back: I knew how to fight… and he didn't."
At this, Roman chuckled lightly before growing serious. Neo turned her gaze back to him as he met her eyes. He could see both of them now, strawberry and chocolate.
"I slaughtered him, Neo… there wasn't much for the police to drag back to the morgue by the time I was done, and it was fun. In fact, it was the greatest feeling I've ever felt… I'm not talking about killing, I'm talking about revenge."
He clenched his tattooed fist.
"There's nothing quite like taking someone that hurt you; made you fear, made you hate, and watching them scream, as you do the same thing to them that you just gritted your teeth through for so long."
Neo's small lips parted silently, pink eyes glittering like candles set alight.
"And that's what I'm going to do when I get out of this place," he told the rapt Neopolitan, "I worked for The Black Circle for years, and Giovane would always find me jobs. Sometimes they were assassinations, but usually I just had to steal something. I got good at stealing, even better than I was at killing. Sometimes it was more fun; lying, manipulating, picking pockets and then hearing them scream as you're already half a block away, way more exciting. Then, one day Giovane tells me to steal some Dust. No, more like, a lot of Dust.
"I was in and out like a ghost, Neo. The Schnee Dust Company usually takes security pretty seriously, and that just meant the guards had more money that I could pluck from their pockets. I handed off the Dust and the money to another agent, and she told me she would get it to Giovane… right before someone kicked me in the head. I never even saw it coming, but she did… Giovane did… everyone did, but me."
Neo looked like she had been struck.
"I'm going to get out of this pit," Roman growled, "I don't care if it takes months, years, decades, I'm going to find Giovane, and I'm going to pull those tusks out of his still screaming face, mount them on my wall, and then everyone in Remnant will know not to fuck with Roman Torchwick!"
In his anger Roman didn't notice the small hand atop his own until Neo gripped his fingers. The contact was alien at first, Roman almost flinching as he whipped his attention back to the petite girl. She hadn't moved, instead having reached across the distance between them to grasp his hand. Her mouth was set, conveying a somber tenacity even as a single tear ran translucent against her milky skin.
Her comfort flooded him, overwhelmingly so, and Roman pulled his hand away before the damn broke and he did something embarrassing, like cry; how dramatic that would be.
Still, he knew what lying looked like, and how Neo's face transformed as his fingers slipped from her own definitely wasn't it; not even close.
The air was thick between them; Roman glanced at the old man, still asleep even as Neo's face stayed locked in a single instant. Discomforted by the moment, his eyes wandered to the broken pipe in the wall.
"You're in here, Neo," he ventured, "Because someone put you in here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that probably means there's someone you want dead, somewhere in Remnant."
It took a few seconds, but surely enough, Neo nodded her small head.
Roman had to chuckle. The funny thing was: this was the most direct communication he and Neo had ever shared. That made it seem a lot like trust, but as dirty a word it may be, trust was starting by the moment to seem like all Roman had left until he found his way to freedom.
"You want to find out what it feels like?" he looked at Neo's eyes, "Revenge?"
Neo's brows furrowed, and as she blinked away the forming tears strawberry became stark white. She narrowed her lids, and gave a single, slow nod, constrained in its ferocity.
And, in spite of himself, it made Roman pull back his lips, like curtains as he bared his teeth in the smile of a man who just made a bet.
Mindful of his still-injured legs he rose and stepped over a confused Neo, making for the pipe in the wall. Just like the first day he was dumped here, he gripped, braced and pulled. His aura stopped the rust from biting into his palms, but after several seconds of strained pulling his legs burned, like he'd been running for miles.
He thought of how much he hated it here; how much he hated everyone who had ever claimed to care about him, and how at the present moment the only person he could trust was a kid that hadn't said a single word and yet had got him to spill his life story. He growled, yanked, cursed every power that be, and the pipe groaned against the metal wall, bending slightly.
"Alright… be that way…" Roman muttered between breaths, stepping back. He rolled his shoulders, inhaled, exhaled, then braced his aura and snapped his right leg into a jumping kick, twisting his calf and bringing the top of his foot down against the pipe.
With his aura concentrated, it was like a fight with an armed opponent; Roman felt the impact, but not the pain. The impact in question, however, was enough to send him stumbling backwards, and he fell to the floor as his already weakened calves buckled.
"Dammit!" He shouted in frustration, Neo rising from her hunch and leaving his field of vision, her attention drawn to the clattering of the broken pipe landing across the cell.
The old man's eyes fluttered open to the sight of Roman hissing as he tried to stand. He watched as he struggled to his feet, Neo walking back over with the ousted pipe in hand.
"Whatever you kids plan on doing with that pipe, just keep it down," the old man said, closing his eyes again, "I'm trying to sleep."
Roman could tell that the old man knew what was going on, but all that mattered was that he didn't seem like he gave a shit. He turned to Neo, receiving the pipe he had dislodged from the wall. Though she offered it, she still appeared uncertain of Roman's intent.
Trust.
"Russet's goons aren't going to let us just walk out of here," Roman tossed the pipe lightly before catching it, testing its weight, "When someone is coming at you with a weapon, don't flinch: move out of the way."
The raising of Neo's eyebrows, first in quizzical confusion, was hastened dramatically as Roman stepped into his attack, swinging the pipe downwards. The girl's eyes widened as she jumped to the left with time to spare, eyes quickly returning to Roman.
"You're fast," he assessed, "But if you jump around everywhere it limits your mobility. Move your feet, and stay balanced!"
Neo nodded before backpedaling from a horizontal swing, the pipe barely grazing the top of her head. The pipe's lack of any ergonomic design or wrapped handle had Roman constantly readjusting his grip as he swung twice more, keeping his attacks moderately quick, and Neo avoided them both with deft, if wobbly footwork, but that was to be expected from a starving child, as Roman hadn't done as well himself in a similar position.
He was impressed, but tried not to let it show; the more he attempted to hit her the more it made him ever more aware that Neo's diminutive stature was actually a valuable asset, as it made her a smaller target, and easier for her to stay mobile.
"Now try and take it from me," he called out as he swung downwards, Neo sidestepping the pipe. The comprehension flashed across her face in a moment, and Roman stepped up his technique. He chained together a simple combination: down, forward step, and into a horizontal slash, which Neo ducked underneath.
She was a fast learner, but still a learner at that; Roman sent her rolling across the floor with a firm kick, which hurt him almost as much as it had hurt her. He hissed as his calf protested, but when he recovered Neo was already on her feet, bouncing on her heels, ready for another round.
Roman's calf felt like it had rebounded off of a punching bag; a sort of lingering inertia, not the same feeling he got when he kicked someone, whether with force or not. His eyes narrowed as Neo started to circle him, hands at her sides, eyes focused on the pipe in his hands.
Roman's brow wrinkled the more he thought about it; it was impossible, not without prior training, or some earlier fight-or-flight event that would have forced her to call upon it, but…
"…An aura?" he whispered.
Neo took the offensive, rushing Roman head on, just as he himself had been instructed not to ever do. Forgoing the pipe, so he didn't crack his new protégé's skull open like an egg in the event he was mistaken, he threw a punch at the small head rapidly approaching his thigh, only for Neo to weave to the side, grabbing the punch and throwing him forward.
Roman's stumbling was accompanied by a cry of surprise before he caught his balance, growling as he whipped the pipe around behind him to deter any counter attacks. A training session it may have been, but he was not going let himself be bested by a child.
He realized his mistake too late; the curved end of the pipe crashed into Neo's skull, and a piercing series of cracks split his ears as Neo's entire body shattered into hundreds of bloodless shards. Roman dropped the pipe, covering his ears as the pieces fell slowly to the floor, only to further scatter.
"All I asked was for you to keep it down!"
An angry admonishment came from the old man, roused from his sleep by the noise, but all Roman could do was stare blankly at the pieces of the closest thing he had to a friend as they slowly dissolved, shards to tiny particles of dust, and from dust to nothing.
The next words out of the old man's mouth were not nearly as scathing, but instead almost remorseful, as if he had jumped to a terrible conclusion only to be proven wrong soon thereafter.
"Not bad, child," he admitted.
Roman was putting the pieces together in his mind, but however appropriate the metaphor, Neo's shards were completely gone. He had seen more than enough people die to know that death came with blood, not a magic show. Gradually he turned, Neo standing behind him and staring at the spot where her projection had just shattered moment's prior.
Her eyes, pale white met Roman's as he faced her, her confusion evident in the part of her lips and the subtle bounce of her locks as she shook her head in disbelief.
"You have a semblance…" Roman spoke aloud, as he tried to work out something that he had very little clues to, "Did you know a Huntsman? How did you learn to do that?"
She continued to shake her head, and it was then that Roman realized he would have to learn to read his new… partner, for a lack of a more proper term, more adeptly if he ever wanted his questions answered. Still, his mind was already beginning to sing with possibilities. Whatever Neo had done, he'd fallen for it, and that meant, hopefully, so would the guards. On top of that, with some more training, she would make a nimble fighter.
He looked away, catching the old man eyeing them from his bedroll, expression concealed behind his long beard.
"Did you see that?" Roman demanded, more out of disbelief than anger, "The illusion?"
"The whole thing," the old man confirmed, "One day she'll be better than you."
Roman rolled his eyes before turning around, Neo in the midst of studying her hands. It was a moment before she returned her attention to him, her shock replaced by visible wonder.
"Maybe," he gestured between himself and Neo, "We have a shot at getting out of here after all."
Roman Torchwick was sure that for as long as he lived, he would never forget the time he saw the first glimmers of hope spark in Neopolitan's eyes, or the small but confident smile that spread across her face.
In the moment, he allowed himself a small smirk, wincing briefly as he bent and picked up the pipe from the floor.
"Alright," he said, brushing dirty hands on his slacks, "Let's see if you can do that again."
The Maw, Day 94
Three months passed in a predictable pattern, of which Roman remembered little. Every moment he wasn't being coerced to the cafeteria to eat and back, getting taunted, threatened, and nearly stabbed on one occasion, by White Fang as the days crawled by, or sleeping and letting his wounds heal, he was training Neo for the day they would fight their way to freedom, or die trying.
He had never fancied himself a teacher, he hated kids, but Neo proved a quick learner, improving her reflexes, endurance, and martial skill at rates that left her able to do in weeks what many could not do in months. Roman instructed her as best he could in the fighting style of The Black Circle, both unarmed and armed methods using the curved end of the pipe to simulate the handle of an umbrella or cane. When the pair wasn't training they hid the makeshift weapon in the wall, as if it had never been broken. Though Neo's tiny body naturally augmented her agility and balance, she was also crafty and determined, able to think on her feet and challenge Roman during their sessions, even if all the while she was the learner.
That was the amazing thing, Roman mused: the driven girl he now tutored seemed so distant from the craven, broken soul he had encountered the day he arrived in The Maw; morning until night they trained, and occasionally Roman would awake and find Neo already up and testing herself, either running through various drills he had taught her or trying to create illusions. Her determination and focus was formidable, and she never once stopped trying to best Roman at every challenge he threw at her.
Twice over the course of three months, Neo had been taken and returned by the guards again, and the interim weeks had been the hardest Roman had spent in The Maw to date, bar none. Both times his thoughts had churned, eating him alive with dark conjectures of where Neo was and what could be happening to her. The one thing he had learned to cling to in order to keep himself going was his partnership with Neo, intermittent one-sided conversations included. The feeling of satisfaction, at watching Neo and himself become stronger, better fighters, biding their time until they eventually risked everything, had become the very everything he was about to risk; the things he had had before his imprisonment seemed so far in the past that now his penthouse, his status in The Black Circle, all of it was irrelevant next to growing stronger and the burning desire to see Giovane Verde die. On the way out, he'd kill Friedrick Russet too, and take Melodic Cudgel back from the bald freak's dead hands.
Separated from Neo, however, all of that disappeared, the burning flame almost snuffed by a near crushing sense of despair and loneliness. Roman had never allowed himself to rely on someone else for so much, and at the end of the day he and Neo were both just partners; strangers working together out of necessity, trusting one another because if they didn't they would never make it out alive, and yet without her, staying hopeful was made significantly more difficult.
Both times she had been returned, she had at first been completely unresponsive, staying still and quiet for hours, and the first time Roman had thought her spirit destroyed. Eventually she recovered the strength to train again, but when he witnessed it all happen a second time, weeks before the current day, it was only by fatigue's grace that he found sleep at all as twisted guesswork about Neo's fate stained his dreams.
Partner or friend, she was all Roman had, and with each passing day he feared losing her by a steadily increasing margin, small but perceptible all the same.
Roman watched Neo approach their table, slipping in and out of view as she weaved through the sea of legs that filled the cafeteria. Nonchalantly he observed her as she crawled behind the shuffling, tattooed feet of a distant Hong Zhao and reappeared several pairs of feet closer, this time beneath an elderly rabbit faunus. She disappeared from sight soon afterwards, and Roman couldn't help but marvel at her natural grace and fluidity as she moved through the crowd with no visible hindrance.
It was only when Neo didn't reappear for a few seconds longer than it usually took her to, Roman trying not to squint his eyes as he continued to survey the crowd with greater scrutiny, that he started to feel uneasy. With every moment that went by without Neo showing he grew more unsettled; he started to wonder if someone even more talented than Neo had tracked her and murdered her, so silently and so swiftly that-
A small hand lightly tapped the corner of Roman's tray, and he had to bite his cheek to stop himself from elbowing an attack that wasn't there out of habit. He took a deep breath, calming his racing heart, and when he opened his eyes Neo's proud grin was at shoulder-height, alive and unharmed.
"Stop smiling," Roman reminded as he tried to appear unaffected, "You shouldn't be broadcasting your semblance in here; what if some stupid faunus trips on his tail and breaks one of your illusions into a million little pieces?"
Neo's face was defensive, the corners of her mouth falling along with her inner brows, but Roman knew that he had made his point from the subtle flush of pale cheeks and the shifting of brown and rosy eyes; just because Neo couldn't speak, didn't mean she couldn't communicate, his own head often filling the gaps in their conversations as he read the language in her expressions.
I thought you'd be impressed.
Roman allowed a single moment of silence to pass before he conceded.
"You had me fooled," he admitted, "You're getting good at that Neo, just don't risk it if you don't have to."
Despite her best attempts to hide it, Neo's grin resurfaced.
Under the table, her other hand finished sliding her most recent acquisition out of her dress pocket, deftly passing it into Roman's larger grasp. He identified a metal zippo lighter, solely through touch, slipping the device into his nearly worn-through pocket. The device was a perfect match with the premium cigar Neo had lifted off of a guard some day's prior, sitting back in the cell tucked into his bedroll.
Freedom was still priority number one, followed very closely by bloody revenge, but Roman would have been a liar if he'd said that he wasn't looking forward to enjoying some old-fashioned tobacco later.
"You didn't stretch the pocket, did you?" he asked, side-eyeing Neo inscrutably.
She shook her head, subtly crossing her index and middle fingers over one another on top of Roman's tray.
He smirked.
"Not bad at all."
Neo rolled her petite shoulders in self-satisfaction.
He never saw me coming.
The fact that he would finally get some tobacco in his system later wasn't the only reason Roman smiled: the change in Neo's attitude was inspiring. Not only had she become very skilled, but also seeing her smile and carry herself with purpose almost made it easier to do so himself, even in what was beyond the shadow of a doubt one of the darkest situations he had ever found himself in.
The world was cold, but small flames still burned in the darkest, most frigid corners, providing just enough warmth.
The table rattled as a newcomer seated himself across from the duo, setting his tray down with muscled arms. He was of middle age, wearing unassuming clothes. He may have been a few inches shorter than Roman, but his body was considerably bulkier, his dense muscles in stark comparison to Roman's lean body by prison food. Obsidian eyes flashed under tossed silver hair, eyeing Neo briefly before studying Roman for an uncomfortably long few seconds.
Roman clenched his fist under the table, Neo tapping the top of his hand twice to confirm she understood just how they were going to play this.
"Excuse me," Roman began, false manners underscored by a condescending lilt, "But I believe you sat down at the wrong table. I think you should go find your own before I-"
"I sat down at the right one," the man stated, nodding his head as if confirming something, "Tall, skinny, ugly tattoos, and an attitude, all check."
His breath smelled like a Mistralian distillery, Neo wrinkling her nose as she stared him down with narrowed eyes colored an unassuming brown. Roman scoffed, masking his thoughts with indifference as he decided whether it was more likely that a new prisoner was trying to make an impression, or Russet was onto him, and had sent in an agent to weed him out.
"Checkboxes on whose list?" Roman chuckled, folding his fingers on the table, "As far as I can tell you're drunk; you smell like a dive bar."
The man closed his eyes as if witnessing a nervous public speaker stutter into a microphone that was feeding back.
"On that note," Roman continued, "You think you could bring me some shots? We can drink to you leaving me the hell alone."
"You Roman Torchwick?"
After a pause of several seconds the man opened his eyes, Roman's act dropped and replaced by the most intimidating scowl he could muster. He clenched and unclenched his tattooed right hand, wishing at the moment that he had that cigar handy. Neo blinked, once, and Roman had no way of knowing if the shift in one of her eyes to pink had been intentional.
"That depends on who's asking."
The man allowed himself a fleeting smirk, burying it before it could do anything to soften his stony expression.
"My name is Marcus… Marcus Black."